Tag: privacy
Age verification: Where do things stand?
After the Digital Economy Act passed in July 2017, implementation of age verification has been repeatedly delayed. We were initially told it would start being enforced in April 2018, but it was put back till the end of 2018. In November the Minister for Digital, Margot James, claimed that it will come into effect by […]
Britain’s Pornographer and Puritan Coalition
This is a cross-post from Notes on Liberty. Brexit isn’t the only ridiculous thing happening in the United Kingdom. In April, the British government is rolling out statutory adult verification for pornography websites and content platforms. This requires all adult content providers to have proof of age or identity for […]
ResistAV
Backlash has launched a campaign to challenge the new age verification rules for online porn. #ResistAV presents Curtains for Privacy starring porn star Misha Mayfair and Backlash spokesperson and activist Pandora Blake, warning of the risk of UK adults being outed under the Digital Economy Act’s 2017 age verification requirements. […]
Backlash response to the BBFC age verification consultation
Dear Sir/Madam, I am responding to this BBFC consultation on the Digital Economy Act 2017 and the proposed Age Verification (AV) regime : – http://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-bbfc/dea-consultation Introduction. Before responding to the questions posed in the consultation I want to stress four points: – 1. Opposition to AV: This regime is not […]
Tell the BBFC that age verification will do more harm than good
By the end of this year, the Government is planning to enforce new rules requiring anyone in the UK to prove their age before looking at pornographic websites. Young people deserve our protection and support, but there is no evidence that these measures will do anything to keep children safe […]
House of Lords briefing on the Digital Economy Bill
Digital Economy Bill Briefing on Section 3: Age verification for online pornography The age verification section of the Digital Economy Bill proposes a technological response to a complex social issue. The policy raises serious concerns regarding loss of personal privacy; increased risk of credit card fraud and identity theft; increased […]
Millian Liberalism and Extreme Pornography
My article, just published online by the American Journal of Political Science, argues that the ‘extreme pornography’ ban violates liberal tenets of free expression and privacy. I draw a parallel between what we might call a ‘traditional’ Millian defence of liberal rights and contemporary queer accounts of the value of […]
Myles Jackman: Don’t criminalise the selfie-generation
Cross-posted from Myles Jackman By criminalising young people between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, our political and justice systems show how disconnected they are from technological change and social values, which is especially worrying so close to an election where politicians have been exploiting selfie culture. After an NSPCC […]
Anti-censorship across the political spectrum
This week, Mark Wallace, Executive Editor of ConservativeHome, explains the practical implications of an Internet porn filter for personal privacy. He argues that filtering will inevitably involve monitoring all of everyone’s internet use, since porn isn’t a well-established category of material easily divided from other content: The only way to […]
So-called ‘Rape porn’ ban would be another threat to sexual freedom
Myles Jackman, legal adviser to Backlash, criticises the nebulous justification of ‘cultural harm’ for banning the mere possession of staged depictions of rape in an exhaustive legal article on his blog. In a key passage, he discusses the failure of prohibitionists to distinguish between fantasy rape scenarios and real acts […]